The largest US and European oil companies have a “good chance” of winning renewals for Abu Dhabi crude-oil concessions, according to the UAE Energy Minister Suhail Mohammed Al-Mazrouei.
“Unless they aren’t aggressive in giving us value, I think they will have a very good chance,” the minister told reporters at an oil conference in Paris. “They are the best in understanding the field because they have been there for 70 years and we hope they will be among the winners.”
Exxon Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total lost their rights as shareholders in the company operating Abu Dhabi’s onshore oil fields after their joint venture expired
at the start of the year. The expired partnership between the international companies and state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, or Adnoc, accounted for about 1.5 million barrels a day of Murban crude, the UAE's main blend.
Adnoc took full control of the unit operating the fields while completing a bidding process to award new concessions. The minister didn’t give a timeframe for when a decision would
be reached.
“No one is guaranteed a seat,” he said. “It’s a bidding. We wish everyone good luck, especially our legacy partners.”
The end of an accord accounting for more than half of the output from Opec’s fourth-largest supplier weakened at least temporarily the role of international companies in the group as member nations seek to retain more oil wealth.
Abu Dhabi holds most of the reserves in the UAE, which pumped 2.8 million barrels a day in March, or 9.3 per cent of oil supplied by Opec,
according to data from the International Energy Agency.
Abu Dhabi pumped oil from its onshore fields under concession deals with Exxon, Shell, Total, BP and Portugal’s Partex Oil & Gas, or their predecessors, that have been in effect since January 1939. Adnoc became a partner in the 1970s, forming Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations, or Adco, in which the five foreign partners held a 40 per cent stake.
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